Haikyuu 2!! Episode 14: Still Growing

Practice, practice, and more practice!

Tsukki is starting to scare me now. He’s putting more and more effort into volleyball now and I’m slowly starting to like him more for that. What the hell. Even Coach Ukai almost burst into tears when he was asked for help.

Okay so like I said, practice. Lots of practice. You’ll expect a lot of that with sports anime, because if they’re not playing, they’re practicing. Though it makes me happy seeing the boys improve, ESPECIALLY YAMAGUCHI!!! HE DID THE FLOATY SERVE THING. I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S CALLED, BUT HE DID IT.

So we learned some things. Kageyama had a crappy disguise on and Yachi was able to recognize him easily. He wanted to go see one of the schools that they might go up against in the qualifiers, which by the way is in two months. Yachi tells him it’s okay to just go in his usual training gear, and so he does. And the school he wanted to spy on was Aoba Johsai, unsurprisingly. Oikawa is a tough opponent, and he wanted to see how they’ve been doing. He returns later to the team and tells them what he saw. Oikawa and his team were having a practice match with college students, some alumni of their school. Oikawa was the only one put in the college team as the setter. And even though he’s never played with these guys, he was able to quickly adapt to each guy’s playing style and quirks, causing them all to be surprised. Oikawa being able to play with just anyone…that’s pretty amazing. This pompous asshole is pretty incredible. I think he has a right to be pompous, lol.

More news with Aoba Johsai. The Mad Dog returns! Uh…who is this guy? Apparently this guy has always been in the team, but after butting heads with the third years he just stopped appearing. But now all of a sudden he’s come back. And I’m guessing he’s back playing in the team and he’ll be in the qualifiers. Though this guy doesn’t look like a team player, which we saw. But with Oikawa on the team, he’ll probably behave. Also, I don’t like the whole Mad Dog name. Yeah it makes sense why he’s called that, but his hair reminds me of a tiger. So…Wild Tiger. Or something. Ok.

Okay so we have Mad Dog, Oikawa being scary, Tsukki actually practicing more (and with his brother!), and…what am I missing? Oh yeah, PRACTICE. So as per usual, more practice matches and individual practices. And we get all of that through another montage. Which is a good thing because watching all of that would have been boring. So after that montage, we finally make it to the day the qualifiers start. And outside they come across the dude with the undercut and tongue piercing that tried asking out Kiyoko last time. And sure enough, this team, the party team, is Karasuno’s first opponents. And oh man I can’t wait to see Karasuno beat those guys. Before every match, Hinata struts over to the bathroom and…

AAAAAAAAAH!!!

oh god it’s Ushiwaka

AND….oh, these guys.

I love how Hinata has become aware that everytime he goes to the bathroom he always has scary encounters. These boys just have the same bladders and need to piss at the same time. Hinata should probably get a bathroom buddy to accompany him everytime he has to go. I’d say Kageyama, but Tanaka is more intimidating and threatening. So, the Aoba Johai duo is ready to beat the crap out of Ushiwaka with tiny Hinata in the middle but thank goodness they don’t. They each go their separate ways. Oh, and the silent guy from Date Tech arrives too, but he’s a nice guy and just bows at Hinata.

So next week will be the first match of the qualifier with Karasuno against the party team! Only one team, the team that beats everyone in the qualifiers, will represent their region and move on to Nationals. I…have no idea what will happen. There’s a lot of tough schools in this, so this should be really exciting. With Haikyuu!!, it doesn’t automatically make our main team win all the time. Like with say, Kuroko no Basket, “Oh, they’re the main characters so they’re going to win all the time!” I don’t feel this way with this show, at least not until they face the tougher schools. I know they’re going to beat Mr. Undercut’s team, but when they go up against Oikawa or Ushiwaka…then I’m nervous.